


yet it is our trick

by ERNest



Series: Put Me In Your Heart For Friend [6]
Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Aborted Confessions of Love, Angst, Bad Boundaries, Biting, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Past Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, ill-advised makeouts, momentary violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26717905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: He didn’t ask what was wrong when it had to be obvious, and didn’t offer condolences that would have sounded empty no matter what words were said.
Relationships: Claudius/Laertes (Hamlet)
Series: Put Me In Your Heart For Friend [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1901488
Kudos: 1





	yet it is our trick

“Your sister’s drowned, Laertes, your sister’s drowned.” They were nonsense words, completely incomprehensible, but they were the only ones he could hear as he ran to… somewhere. No, not even _to_ anywhere, he just had to get away. Alas, then she was drowned. Once more, Laertes choked on it. How could she be when he had taught her how to swim in that very river and showed her how to avoid its reeds and weeds?

_How_ could he have asked the queen where it happened when it would only force her to come up with a lovely fiction for them both? Because he knew; he _knew_ that when Ophelia asked G-d to have mercy she was speaking of her own soul and when she told him goodbye that final day it was because she knew where she was headed.

His footsteps on metal stairs thundered in the index as he descended. He couldn’t keep going like this with so much sitting on his heart, so he sank onto the step, submerged in his grief the way Ophelia must have been. And then he wept. He’d promised himself no more tears, promised his sister, but these were just more of the same that began when he heard what happened to her. In any case he couldn’t stop them from flowing. So he wept.

“Laertes.” It wasn’t a question coming from someone who knew exactly what he was looking for, and it wasn’t shouted because he was direct, not urgent. The staircase creaked the way it always did when someone went too fast, threatening to tear its anchors from the wall. Laertes wished it _would_ , let it drag them _both_ down and it would serve them right.

Despite what he deserved, the structure held, and Claudius crouched just below him, sizing him up, perhaps deciding what he could get away with. He didn’t ask what was wrong when it had to be obvious, and didn’t offer condolences that would have sounded empty no matter what words were said. This was, perhaps, why Laertes didn’t try to still his sobs for him. They had never suffered performance to stand between them.

Nothing stood between his cheek and the softness of Claudius’s palm. He was better used to fingertips at the edge of his jaw to guide him back to the present moment, while this touch invited him to stay just where he was. Laertes was not at _all_ used to the feeling of those lips on his. It wasn’t true of course, but right then it felt to him that this was the first he’d ever been kissed.

Their connection was not hesitant; nothing they shared could have been a hesitation, coming from such an explosive beginning. But still it was slow, and careful, and _almost_ , if Laertes could believe he were a better person, almost sweet. They were in sync and parted their lips together for the same sigh. Claudius shifted just a little to kiss him deeper, and Laertes let himself be kissed. He didn’t move to take anything for himself, but let his eyes slip shut as Claudius slipped a hand to the back of his neck, and accepted whatever he would give. He wanted to drown in it, he wanted to…

Drown. He was drowning, he was drowning, just as she, Ophelia, just as his _sister_ was always going to have gone. And he wanted to. He choked on it, choked away from the king and his searching lips, and hit him across the shoulders with the heel of his hand because he just had to get him _away_.

Claudius stumbled back, further than one push should have brought him, and caught himself quickly on the railing. Laertes looked at the arm he had flung forward when it looked like he was going to fall even further, and then he looked at the utter shock scrawled across the king’s face. He lowered his hand and watched Claudius regain control of himself the same way, his initial reaction replaced by sorrow and acceptance. His eyes flickered up to meet Laertes’s, and then he lowered them again and nodded twice.

There was a sick sort of satisfaction in it, to have someone before him willing to take the blame or blows or anything else. Someone who didn’t deserve any of that, someone who deserved it all, someone who was just _there_ when he’d needed someone to hit. He almost wanted to push, just to see how far he could take it, how _much_ he could make another person hurt like he was.

But that wasn’t _fair_ , he knew, not when he knew just how much Claudius was hurting already. Not when he held secrets about him that no one else did and which he would never give away, no matter what else happened between them. And, Laertes realized at once, he could _see his hands_. They weren’t even in fists, but held loosely before him. He didn’t reach out but he was open, available, if _Laertes_ chose to reach for him. He didn’t know if he would, if he even wanted to, but it meant something to have the option.

He scrunched his eyes shut so for a short while he wouldn’t have to see how terrible everything had become. But the terrible things didn’t go away so he forced himself to look and replaced his shuttered vision with mangled sentences.

“It’s not— I’m sor— Everything is just— To expostulate—”

It wasn’t until that last attempt that he realized his gestures were the ones his father made before launching into a speech that used too many words to say too little. No. The gestures he _had_ made. The speeches that _used_ to be useless. The father was gone and the son could only remember him by replaying movements he once mocked. The brother used to share teasing looks with the sister and now she was gone too. It was more than he could take, so he took the only other option he had available.

When he took Claudius by the hand he didn’t hesitate, quite, but he waited to see that there was no fear, even swiftly covered up, even if he _had_ left himself open for this. When he was as sure as he could be, he pulled the king to him, seized his shoulders and neck and back, and dragged him close to hold him hard. He dragged in a breath that didn’t feel like it would kill him, just one, and took what felt like the second kiss he’d ever had.

It wasn’t sweet, and it definitely wasn’t slow, but he was hungry for it, they both were. This time Claudius was the one to accept every change in pace and intensity, and responded eagerly to everything as it happened. “Laertes,” he moaned into his mouth, “ _Laertes_ …” So Laertes bit at his lips and swallowed down the sound of his name.

Right then he needed Claudius so much closer, needed to feel that name echo from inside his chest, uttered by someone who’d seen him as he was and still saw fit to call for him. There was no way for either of them to come nearer than they were, not without falling, and why, he thought half-bitterly, should he presume to deserve it? But if they were both as terrible as each other, then didn’t they deserve to be stuck together? Maybe, just maybe, he could stand to fall.

“Claudius,” he murmured, just to get his attention, but it felt good in his mouth, too. “Claudius, get up.” He hardly had to tug at his arms for the king to rise, and when he was sure of both their footing he traced his mouth, felt a light breath on his fingertip, and then he kissed that mouth once, with tongue this time. Not sweet, but slow, he pressed Claudius’s spine against the spine of the staircase and pressed their lips together without giving either of them the chance to take a breath first. He wanted them both just a little dizzy for this, couldn’t let them think too hard about it or he _knew_ it must end.

Claudius didn’t hold him in return and when Laertes looked down it was to see his hands by his side, clutching the air like he needed to grab something but couldn’t be sure he was allowed. Of course Laertes would have welcomed those hands, wasn’t sure he could ever refuse them if they were offered him, yet there was something in it. There was something to be treasured in seeing Claudius untethered so, when Laertes held him tight and secure in every other way.

Not _every_ way, he thought, and he tore his eyes away from those gorgeous fingers so he could kiss him hard and _taste_ that desire, live nowhere but this moment. True, there were ways they could not hold each other, words neither would ever say, but as it would do no good to think on it, he lowered his head to kiss Claudius’s throat, to probe with his teeth until he found where the blood rushed so hard he could almost hear it. When he bit the spot both fierce and tender he heard Claudius call out to heaven.

He knew the feeling.

“G-d!” he sobbed into his neck. It should have been delight, it felt so good, but here came yet more tears, the ones he’d maybe never manage to expel, and he curled himself around the king in a desperate clinging hug, seeking harbor.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay.” The king sought to be a harbor for him. Laertes felt him raise his arms, and felt the pause there, the calculation before he put hands on shoulder blades, and felt strangely grateful for that pause, but more grateful still for that touch. They stayed there for a time. “Good Laertes…” said Claudius, and it was a tone that forced him to watch his face, so open, almost fearful. “I have to tell you, I—”

But it would be _impossible_ to hear whatever pronouncement could prompt that fear. “I _can’t_ ,” he gasped, and he may have been a coward, but not enough of one to refuse to see how he crumpled at the refusal. Softer (trying to be softer; failing) he added. “I’m sorry, I. Not _now_ ,” he managed, but as he said it he was quite certain that they might not get another time. And still he didn’t, couldn’t, take it back.

Claudius gave a gentle nod, took a moment to compose his features, and raised his fist to his chest for a formal bow that gave nothing away. Before he fully turned to go he graced Laertes’s elbow with his fingertips, and then he descended the same way he’d come.

He didn’t look back, and Laertes didn’t look away, but held onto that final lingering touch as he came to rest once more on the stairs.


End file.
